War Diaries of a Little Englander.
Being the toy soldier, wargaming and kit bashing ramblings of a middle-aged Englishman.

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Greetings!

'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Friday, 16 March 2012

By way of an introduction...

Yes, another blog. We live in strange times. Now we desire to combine the graffiti writing urges of old Pompey with the diary introspection of Pepys (or, in some cases, the depravity of 'Walter') in the form of the blog. And I am struck by the same desire. As usual with desires we can always blame others, so I blame the marvellous wargame blogs of Officer Kinch, His Grace, the Duke of Tradgardland, the noble Ross Mac, and our brother in Christ, the Padre. These are exemplary wargames blogs, and I can only hope to strive for such entertaining perfection.

Like many wargamers, I seek not to replicate war, but to indulge in a harmless past-time, find an escape from daily life (known to me as 'the diurnals'), and bathe in nostalgia. Among the odd memories of half a century, that of opening a Christmas day gift of a tin of size 2 Humbrol gloss royal blue (for a packet of Airfix Waterloo French) remains clear, when much else is lost. And the figures that I have painted, organised, admired, and occasionally gamed with also remain fresh in my mind's eye. They still have purchase too, as only the other day I picked up, in my grandson's house, a 54mm plastic Napoleonic Prussian and said to my wife, 'I painted this chap 40 years ago', to which my three old grandson said, 'And now he is in Toby's house!'. There may be 'no continuing city' for us mortals, but the little plastic and tin fellows have some immortality. So, these are the sources of my 'War Diaries'.

As for 'Little Englander', well, it reflects the little of the hobby, but also me as a Hobbit-like Englishman (no trade mark infringements intended - and I care not in any case, the globalisers can get lost). I am a middle-aged, pipe-smoking, grumpy, Englishman with an allotment, and apple trees in a tiny garden. I like the small, the local, the vernacular, the undemonstrative. Speaking of which, I recently returned from Denmark, a country that exhibits these virtues. Strikingly, to English eyes, Danes are happy with their national lot, and unabashed about their quiet patriotism. The Danebrog flies everywhere, here at the Royal Danish Navy base in Copenhagen:

And in the summer months the Danebrog flies everywhere over the perfect allotment huts of the Danes, which are far more orderley and well-constructed than our own allotment huts of old doors and palletts. It was, in fact, the example of the Denmark that led me to fly the English flag over my own few square feet of England.

I look forward to your forthcoming posts. One of the things I have found with this blogging lark is that there are many people out there who I would dearly like to meet and share a pint or a pipe with and mull over our strange little hobby. Great to see the White Dragon of England flying on your header as well.kind regardsMike

Greetings and thanks! Yes, our lives are too short, too full of the diurnals, and we are too separated - but I will raise a pint of ale to you, and smoke a bowl. The White Dragon is returning, and I place this little blog under the protection of St. Edmund, of noble memory.

May I join the others in welcoming you to the world of joy and frustration that we call blog. I look forward to reading your posts, is your icon thingy a poster from the Spanish Civil War?All the best, Brian

Thank you Mr Carrick! Yes, it is a CNT/FAI poster with a very 'period' feel about it, and an image that could have been used by any ideology, but I like the irony for an English speaker of the slogan 'Al Front!' reading as 'Alfred Front', the local allotmenteer and ale drinker.

Quotation of the moment

'In a sense, nothing in life is planned - or everything is - because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.'

Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World (A Dance to the Music of Time), 1955.

Cpt. Front

About Me

New Men-At-Arms

Not out until February 2018, but order your copy early - you know it makes sense!

NOW IN PAPERBACK!!!

The Home Guard - 'This is likely to be the standard reference book on the subject for many years to come'; Bernard Lowry, Fortress Study Group.

A Vanished Ideology Essays on the Jewish Communist Movement in the English-Speaking World

Yiddish-speaking, English-speaking, Jews in the Communist movement. With a chapter on British Jews, ethnicity and class, by Al Front.

When Jews had a place on the Left.

The Labour Party is sunk in a mess of anti-Semitism, but it was not always thus:

Alf R. Ont on the wireless

Click on the image and scroll to 01:05:23 for the dulcet tones of Mr Ont, talking about women in the Home Guard.

Women in the Home Guard

From The Conversation, 5th February, 2016. Active, patriotic British women to the fore...

NEW BIOGRAPHY of 'FLYING' FAY TAYLOUR

277 pages of thrills and spills. 'Fanatical Fay Taylour', the greatest woman motor sports champion yet. A speed fiend on race tracks across the world, and a political activist who was banned from the USA, and interned in the UK. Member of the ultra-right underground in 1940s London and Dublin, later an Irish republican and supporter of Castro. Click image for a FREE ,yes, FREE, Pdf version provided by the University of Warwick.

Evolution and change in politics

A review of a new history of what was once a notable element of political allegiance among the Jewish diaspora. (Clink on the image for free link).

Germany calling...

The woman who recruited 'Lord Haw Haw' to the Berlin wireless. Socialist, Bolshevik, National Socialist, enemy broadcaster. (From The Historian 119; click on image for Pdf)

BBC Radio 4: Red Clydeside, Decoy Defences and Invasion panic

More Radio 4 'Making History' rambling - from 20th November 2012 (click on the image for link)

'The Land of My Dreams'

British Great War literary combatants and their writing about the war and home. A Pdf of an article from Cultural & Social History, vol. 8, no: 2, June 2011. (Click on image for link).

British Jews & the Communist Party of Great Britain

More reading for the VBCW enthusiast, not to mention the discerning reader (click on image for link). From Socialist History, vol.12, no: 41, September 2012

BBC Radio 4: Speed, women, and fascism

Listen to my dulcet tones, talking about 'Flying' Fay Taylour on BBC Radio 4's Making History (click on the image for link)

'Fay Taylour: a dangerous woman in sport and politics'

A must for the VBCW gamer - the most successful woman motor sport ace ever and a fascist. Click on image for journal link, an open access Pdf will eventually be available.

The Armourer magazine, March/April 2012

The true daughters of Britannia who joined the Home Guard

Political internment without trial, 1940 style

Fascists, nazis, and the IRA interned. Click on image for back issue of Britain At War, issue 46, Feb 2011

George Blake, literary Scot in the Great War

The Great War fiction of the veteran, George Blake - from Cencrastus no:67. Out of print, but I can send a photocopy, if you wish.

For the VBCW war gamer

In History Scotland, March/April 2011; click on image for free Pdf.

Fifth Column panic!

Buy a back issue - all that is left

The incomparable generation of 1914

from The Historian no:110, Summer 2011, magazine of The Historical Association; click on image for Pdf.

BBC Radio 4: Stand By the King!

Listen to my words of historical wisdom about the BUF in Norfolk on Radio 4's 'Making History'. Click on image for link.

One I did earlier...

Musso and the RSI

Fascism in Scotland

From the Scottish Historical Review, volume 87 (2) 2008 (click on the image for Pdf link)

Another Home Guard one...

A 50 page booklet, now out of print, but available as a pdf from Warwick University - click on the image for the link.